


Cecil Palmer, Chatty Man.

by soliloquysfromintermission



Category: Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: Gen, Intern Maureen in my headcanon has a weird relationship with her boss, Intern Maureen in my headcanon is a bit grumpy, Intern Maureen would be better fleshed out if I have a longer attention span
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-15
Updated: 2014-06-15
Packaged: 2018-02-04 19:06:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,261
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1789912
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/soliloquysfromintermission/pseuds/soliloquysfromintermission
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>To the family of Intern Maureen: She was a good intern, with a beautiful puppy, and a chatty neighbour. - Cecil Palmer.</p><p>A short story about how Intern Maureen met her new chatty neighbour and her boss on the same day.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Cecil Palmer, Chatty Man.

**Author's Note:**

> Judging by the rage Intern Maureen has on Cecil in today's show, it suddenly made me wonder exactly what would happen if Maureen's neighbour was her boss. 
> 
> Then this happened.
> 
> I am so very very sorry.

Maureen grabbed the last box into the apartment and heaved a huge sigh of relief.

Finally, she had managed to move out of her college dorm and into an apartment that was only a few minutes walk out of Night Vale Community College . It was also a bus ride away from her new internship place, at Night Vale Community Radio. Frankly, she didn’t really like the prospect of working for a small station like the NVCR, but her first choice of internship at the Night Vale Daily Journal had been rejected because the Editor-in-Chief , Leann Hart had nearly tried to kill her during the interview when Maureen mentioned that she had been blogging since she was 14 and had a followership of 500 on her Tumblr. She should have mentioned from the beginning that she blogged about music and did not do social commentary about the news and the politics of Night Vale, but then again, the damage was done.

Luckily the hatchet Leann had hurled at her missed her neck by an inch and she managed to get at least half of her hair chopped off.

She fingered the blunt edges of her new bob with a sense of relief and dismay. She had long, flowing black hair for most of her life and in a way it was sad for it to go that short so quickly , but she had managed to style it into a fashionable bob and then dyed it a dark red, so it was pretty much a plus. Also, it was summer in the desert and it went unspoken that the sun was blazing hot. Luckily, in Night Vale, the nights always seemed to be longer and much cooler as the years went by, and Maureen’s internship generally meant that she would have to work mostly nights anyway, so it was pretty cool.

Besides, she got to sleep in, and which 19 year old wouldn’t want that?

The door knocked, and Maureen inwardly groaned. God, she only moved in an hour ago, how did the neighbours know? Biting a retort and putting on a smile bordering on a grimace, she went to look through the peephole.

A rather nondescript man stood at the door , his head rather distorted and looking rather excited  from the view she got from the peephole. She hated peppy types like that.

“ Hello!” said the man at the door. “ You’re the new neighbour, aren’t you? My name is Cecil, I live in 12 B, wow I love your hair, it looks so very red, what do you use to dye it? Wow, you’re very young, okay that sounded majorly creepy, like a pervert at a porn store. Erm, let’s forget I ever said porn store to a 16 year old... How’s the moving day going, do you need help?”

This was said in a rush of excitement and while Maureen felt something from the man’s deep sonorous voice, it also came with a sense of foreboding. The only thing she could say in the face of the verbal vomit was, “ Erm...the blood of my enemies?”

Cecil looked blank for a minute, then laughed. “ Oh right! Your hair! It certainly does remind me of blood in the light, though I don’t think you should soak your hair in blood to get that colour, is that even possible? I went green once but Carlos- that’s my boyfriend, by the way- he told me that the green was a little weird and reminded him of seaweed. He doesn’t like plants that much, he’s a scientist, and studies science, not dendrology or botany. You look rather pained, are you okay? Oh, of course, I should come in to help you with your boxes!”

“ No, wait that’s-“

But it was too late, the new neighbour had happily sauntered his way into her apartment. The only thing she could do was yell, " I'm 19!"as she went back to help him and make sure to check that the knives were close by in case the neighbour was a crazy person and tried to kill her.

\-------------------------------------------

Maureen groaned aloud as she stepped off the bus in front of the Night Vale Community Radio, a non-descript building of one floor, but very wide. When she was young, it had been rumoured that the station had been built on the burial ground of very disgruntled accountants who tried to start a revolution by using their calculators as a barricade and weaponised their visors as boomerangs, but failed dramatically.

Her _ye ye_ would scoff at the story. What absolute nonsense,he would say. The accountants were never that stupid to use the calculators as a barricade. Everyone knew the calculators made the best grenades.

In any case, rumour true or false, she was glad to be out of the house after enduring long hours of unpacking with the rather cheery, chatty neighbour. He had stayed throughout the entire day helping her with boxes, chattering all the way and even giving her a wood carving of a rather angry looking cat floating, paws up and eyes flaring , as a housewarming gift. The spines and tendril hubs of the cat did make the cat look a bit scarier than the other cats she had seen but Maureen did admit it was a rather cute cat.  She thanked the neighbour solemnly and with an absoluteness of finality, shut the door after he chattered on about how it was to finally have an adorable neighbour around and he was ,” happy to help her with the ropes, after all, that’s what good neighbours do!”

She had to admit the man was helpful and provided her tips with how to work the laundry room as well as a way to work the stuck rubbish chute on her floor (“ The trick is you gotta sing to the chute. It doesn’t like rap music, but if you sing a little bit of Ke$ha, the chute opens up. It’s current favourite is Die Young.”) . However, she was not used to such loquaciousness and was rather relieved when the man left at around 6 to “get to work”. She did briefly wonder what it was that made him have to work a night shift with his disposition. He was probably a telemarketer.

She entered the white steps of the radio station, pausing for a moment to bleed on the bloodstone doors as per instructions on her email sent a week ago.  The doors vibrated in contact of her blood, a small ding was heard and a small nametag popped out of the chute with her name and the words “Intern” printed on it. She pinned the tag on the left breast of her hoodie and walked in.

Now the instructions in the email told her to go straight to the recording booth to report to their Intern Supervisor before being given a tour of the premises. Where was the-

“ Maureen?”

Oh no. By the gods of the Western skies.

“ So it is you!”

Her neighbour. Her goddamn neighbour was in the radio station. Say he didn’t work here. Say he was only visiting. Say-

“ Well, you’re an intern? This sorta makes me your boss! I’m the Voice of Night Vale!”

Bugger all this for a lark.

Her neighbour. Her chatty, really cheerful neighbour was her boss.

She was going to see him at work and he was going to get more excuses to say hi to her at the apartment block.

If he suggested they carpool together, she was going to go back to the Night Vale Daily Journal.

**Author's Note:**

> AND THE REST IS HISTORY.
> 
> Intern Maureen is my new favourite, okay.


End file.
